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Sunday Worship: Pilgrimage and Peace

Pilgrimage and Peace

BBC Radio 4 - Sunday Worship, Pilgrimage and Peace

Rev Canon Sarah Hills, Vicar of St Mary’s, Holy Island, explores pilgrimage and peace

Rev Canon Sarah Hills, the new Vicar of St Mary’s Church on Holy Island, explores the theme of pilgrimage and peace

Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
Make me an island, set apart,
alone with you, God, holy to you.

Then with the turning of the tide
prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,
the world that rushes in on me
till the waters come again and fold me back to you.
(Aidan of Lindisfarne)

Lying just a few miles off the Northumberland Coast, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne is one of the most important Christian sites in the United Kingdom. In 635AD, St Aiden came from Iona in Scotland to found his monastery on the island, becoming its first Abbot and Bishop. Holy Island remains a place of pilgrimage today.

Rev Canon Sarah Hills has made this pilgrimage, becoming the Vicar of St Mary the Virgin Church on Holy Island in January this year. Before that she was Canon for Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral. She is also Honorary Canon for Reconciliation at Inverness Cathedral for the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

In this act of worship she reflects on the theme of pilgrimage and peace, considering how the ancient Holy Island saints Aidan and Cuthbert can help us today work together for peace in our hearts and in our world.

Producer: Andrew Earis

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